Overgrown and neglected but pleasingly sited on a hillside, this cemetery was known for its collection of fine funerary monuments, including the tomb of Ram Mohan Roy (1774-1833), the first Hindu known to have been buried in Britain. It made a great place for a stroll, and as the minutes ticked by, so my determination to buy in its proximity increased.Then to my surprise I spotted a billy goat wandering around the tombs. I suppose the council has brought him in to keep the grass down, I thought, before wandering over to pat its head. The goat seemed friendly, indeed positively desirous of affection. The only trouble was that when I wanted to continue on my way it was reluctant to let me go. At first it just trotted meekly along behind me, but then, as I sped up in an effort to shake it off, it ran up behind me and rammed me with its horns. In the end the only way to get rid of it was to plead with visitors walking in the opposite direction to distract it while I made my escape.
Fast forward the decades and I was sitting on the terrace with my neighbors wallowing in a bout of nostalgia. “There used to be so many animals,” I sighed, and we started checking them off on our fingers. İnek the cow and Dana her calf. Ateş the street dog that disliked men intensely and had to be relocated to a farm after she nipped the wrong ankle. The chickens that used to forage in the litter bin. The horse that used to pull the cart carrying my neighbors to their garden. The donkey that exercised its vocal cords at two in the morning. All gone, every last one of them.
The next morning I was sitting in my courtyard when I heard the curious sound of a cowbell jangling, followed in short order by the sound of bleating. The next thing I knew a set of hairy legs came strolling past the cat flap. I threw open the gate and there outside were two goats and a sheep. The sheep was continuing on its way. The goats, however, had paused for a snack. One was reaching up to sample the Virginia creeper while the other was gently nibbling the last of the marigolds in the tubs outside the gate.
Then their owner came waddling along, clutching half a dozen empty plastic water bottles. “Can I fill them in your house?” she asked and I ushered her into the courtyard. A few days later she was back again. “What’s wrong with the çeşme [fountain]?” I asked churlishly.
“It’s slow and I’m so busy,” she said, which sounded a tad unlikely. As she made her way out again, she paused to scoop up the weeds waiting to be taken to the bin. Hmm, I thought, it might be rather nice to keep a goat and perhaps it wouldn’t cost that much…
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
